The invention relates to an apparatus for the storage and conveyance of cigarettes or the like in a container (slope), from which the cigarettes can be extracted via a lower orifice, with an elongate pressure member which rests on an upper cigarette level formed during the conveyance of the cigarettes out of the container and away.
Cigarettes are often stored and transported in flat containers receiving a group of cigarettes in an equidirectional formation, but otherwise in an unordered manner. The container, also called a slope, is usually open on two sides, namely on a large-area front side and on an upper or lower long narrow side. This orifice is directed upwards during the filling of the container with cigarettes and during transport and storage. To extract the cigarettes, the container is rotated through 180.degree., so that the orifice is located on the underside. The cigarettes can then flow off via the open lower side.
To empty the container, the latter is conventionally placed onto a stationary collecting container assigned to a packaging machine or onto a cigarette magazine located on the machine. The cigarette stock flows off out of the container downwards according to the "consumption" of the cigarettes in the packaging machine. A cigarette level thereby forms within the container. To avoid a non-uniform formation of the cigarette level in the container, according to German Offenlegungsschrift 1,904,495 an elongate pressure member rests on the cigarette level formed during the conveyance of the cigarettes out of the container and away.